Codependency
Codependency is a relational pattern in which a person organises their emotional life around another — their needs, moods, crises, or wellbeing — at the expense of their own. It is characterised not by attachment or love as such, but by a compulsive form of caretaking in which the self is gradually lost. The codependent person often cannot distinguish between where they end and the other person begins.
It is most commonly discussed in the context of relationships with people who struggle with addiction, but codependency is not confined to those situations. It can develop in response to a parent’s emotional fragility, a partner’s volatility, or any relationship in which one person’s needs consistently overwhelm the other’s.
Signs of codependency
The signs of codependency are not always obvious because many of them look, on the surface, like virtues: being helpful, being loyal, being available, putting others first. What distinguishes codependency from these qualities is the compulsive quality of the behaviour, the difficulty stopping even when it causes harm, and the way a person’s own identity becomes dependent on the role of caretaker or rescuer.
Common signs include: an excessive sense of responsibility for another person’s feelings or behaviour; difficulty saying no without significant anxiety or guilt; deriving self-worth primarily from being needed; a pattern of staying in relationships that are harmful; suppressing one’s own needs in order to avoid conflict; poor personal boundaries; and chronic anxiety about what others think or feel.
Codependency and relationships
In relationships, codependency creates a dynamic that is often described as enabling — in which the codependent person’s behaviour inadvertently supports the continuation of the other person’s problem. A partner who calls in sick for someone who is hungover, or a parent who manages the consequences of an adult child’s addiction, may feel they are helping. They are not. The behaviour protects the person from experiencing the consequences that might motivate change, while exhausting the carer.
But the deeper issue in codependency is not about the other person at all. It is about the codependent person’s relationship with themselves: the belief, often formed in childhood, that love must be earned through service, that expressing needs is dangerous, that the self has no value independent of what it does for others.
Origins of codependency
Codependency typically has its roots in early experience. A child who grows up with a parent who is emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or dependent on the child for emotional regulation learns to prioritise the parent’s emotional state above their own. This is not a pathology in the child — it is an adaptation to an environment in which being attuned to others was a survival strategy. The problem arises when that strategy persists into adult life, where it is no longer adaptive.
Family systems shaped by addiction, mental illness, or chronic parental distress are particularly common breeding grounds for codependent patterns. Jungian analysis and integrative psychotherapy can help trace these patterns to their origins and begin to loosen their grip.
Treatment for codependency
Treatment for codependency is not primarily about changing behaviour — though behaviour does change. It is about understanding the underlying beliefs and emotional structures that make the behaviour feel necessary. This work requires depth.
Psychotherapy offers the conditions in which that work can happen: a relationship in which the person is not required to manage the therapist’s feelings, in which their own needs can be expressed, and in which the patterns that developed in childhood can be recognised and gradually revised. For many people with codependent patterns, the therapeutic relationship itself is a corrective experience — perhaps one of the first in which they have encountered a relationship that does not ask them to disappear.
Dr Jacquet works with codependency in individual psychotherapy at Harley Street and Central London, and online. His approach draws on Jungian analysis, integrative psychotherapy, and an addiction specialism developed through training at the Hazelden Foundation — where codependency and family systems are central to the treatment model.
Codependency in relationships
In a codependent relationship, the dynamic often follows a recognisable structure: one person over-gives, over-functions and enables, while the other under-functions or acts out — through addiction, irresponsibility, or recurring crisis. The person who is over-giving typically experiences this as care, loyalty or love. What it does structurally is prevent the other person from experiencing the natural consequences of their behaviour, while exhausting the carer and narrowing their world progressively around the other person’s needs.
The deeper issue in a codependent relationship is not simply the other person’s behaviour — it is what is happening in the codependent person’s own psychology. The compulsion to rescue, to manage, to stay, to fix: these are not simply responses to the other person. They are expressions of something that was formed earlier, usually in a family where caregiving and emotional management were required of the child from a young age. The codependent relationship in adult life is, in many respects, a repetition of that original dynamic — with a different person, but a familiar structure.
Recognising this does not mean the relationship cannot change. It means that the work of changing it begins with the codependent person’s own psychology, not primarily with the other person’s behaviour.
Frequently asked questions about codependency
Am I codependent?
Codependency is not always easy to recognise in oneself because many of its features look like positive qualities — being caring, being loyal, being available. Some useful questions: Do you feel responsible for other people’s moods or problems? Do you find it very difficult to say no, or do you say yes and then feel resentful? Does your sense of self-worth depend heavily on being needed? Do you stay in relationships that cause you harm because leaving feels impossible? If several of these resonate, it may be worth exploring with a therapist.
What are the main symptoms of codependency?
The most common symptoms of codependency include: difficulty identifying or expressing your own needs; compulsive helping or caretaking, even when it causes harm to yourself; poor or absent personal boundaries; deriving your sense of identity primarily from relationships; difficulty tolerating conflict or disappointing others; chronic anxiety about what others think or feel; and a pattern of attracting or staying in relationships with people who need to be rescued or fixed. In more pronounced presentations, codependency can include a loss of a coherent sense of self outside of the caretaking role.
What is the connection between codependency and addiction?
Codependency and addiction are deeply intertwined. The term codependency originated in the addiction treatment field — specifically to describe the relational pattern that develops in family members and partners of people with addiction. The codependent person organises their life around managing, rescuing or enabling the addicted person, often to the complete neglect of their own needs. This dynamic can sustain the addiction by removing its natural consequences. But it also describes something real about the codependent person’s own psychological structure — one that requires therapeutic attention in its own right, not simply as a reaction to someone else’s addiction. Philippe Jacquet trained at the Hazelden Foundation, where family systems and codependency are central to the treatment model.
How do you stop being codependent?
Stopping codependent behaviour is not primarily a matter of willpower or changing habits. The patterns run deep — they were formed in early experiences where they served a genuine survival function. What changes them is understanding: understanding where they came from, what they are protecting against, and what it would mean to live differently. Depth psychotherapy — particularly integrative and Jungian approaches — offers the conditions for that understanding to develop. The therapeutic relationship itself is often corrective: a relationship in which you are not required to manage someone else’s feelings, and in which your own needs are legitimate.
Is codependency a mental health condition?
Codependency is not classified as a formal diagnosis in the DSM or ICD. It is better understood as a relational and psychological pattern — one with identifiable origins, recognisable features, and effective treatment. The absence of a formal diagnosis does not diminish its impact: codependency can significantly affect quality of life, relationships, and wellbeing. It is well within the scope of psychotherapy and is taken seriously as a clinical presentation in its own right.